1975 detective fiction; sixth of Aird's novels of Inspector Sloan and
Constable Crosby. Bill Fent, local landowner, died when his car hit
another at a notorious corner… but he'd have been dead before morning
anyway, from the poison in his system.

This is a good solid mystery of the old school, and I don't mind
admitting that I didn't spot the solution. The Fents have a money-poor
estate, but can't sell any of the land for development unless the
owner and heir can agree to break the entail… but the heir wasn't
interested in cooperating, though he's ready enough to talk about his
plans now. And the next heir just happens to be on the scene too.
The widow certainly knows more than she's saying. Then there's
everyone else who was at the fatal dinner party; but they all ate the
same food, and nobody else came down with anything.

"Give me a straightforward manual strangulation any day of the week.
At least you do know where you are then."

But while I might quibble about whether some of the clues were
properly given to the reader, I enjoyed this book mostly for its
descriptive prose and characterisation: not so much of Sloan himself,
who's mostly a neutral viewpoint character, but of everyone else, like
the pathologist who spots the poison:

"The interesting thing about the liver," began Dr. Dabbe in a
hortatory tone, "is that—I say, Inspector, your constable's gone a
very funny colour all of a sudden. Are you feeling all right, boy?
Hey, Writtle, catch him before he falls. Here, put him on this
chair. Had we better put his head between his knees, do you think?"
he asked anxiously. "I haven't had a live patient in thirty years,
you know … never did like 'em when they could answer back. Wonder
what could have upset him …" The pathologist peered round the
hospital laboratory, which was lined from floor to ceiling with
gruesome specimens, saw nothing untoward, and took another look at
Crosby. "Feeling better now? Good. Now, Sloan, where was I?"

and the village biddies:

"Oh, no. [The doctor] leaves the number where he is on the machine
for the patient to ring direct if it's urgent. I know that because
[his wife] doesn't like it. It means that anyone in the village can
ring up and find out where they are for the evening."

"Poor girl," said Miss Paterson dryly. "Does she still imagine that
they wouldn't know otherwise?"

"She's from London. I don't think she knows much about the country
yet."

and indeed the clerk of the court where Fent served as a JP:

"Much crime over your way?"

"Not crime exactly," said the clerk expansively, "but we're the back
door of Society's stables and that's where you see the breeder's
mistakes, isn't it?"

Really the only misstep is the woman whose principal characterisation
is that she's fat, and this is assumed to tell us everything we need
to know about her. Ho hum.

Although the overall form is a police procedural, the book could have
been set in the 1930s without too much alteration; the main things
marking it as of its time are the disrespectful Constable Crosby, and
Sloan's concern about guns in the hands of criminals. Pregnvayl gur
hygvzngr ernfba sbe gur zheqre jbhyq svg orggre gura guna ng gur qngr
bs choyvpngvba; V jnfa'g ragveryl pbaivaprq ol vg, rira nf fbzrbar jub
fcraqf fbzr gvzr jvgu uvf urnq va gung ren.

But even with its minimal length, less than 50,000 words, and fairly
abrupt ending, the book holds up well; I enjoyed the split timeline at
the start, set during the funeral service interspersed with memories
of the events leading up to it, and Aird generally writes in a style I
found both pleasant and enjoyable.

I read this for Past Offences'
1975 month, and plan at some point to read more in the series.
Followed by Parting Breath.